Written by I was in my classroom far too late on a Wednesday evening. I called to cancel a yoga date with a friend, while staring at You Tube uploading screen, wondering why this was happening now: the first night my students could watch the comma videos, I realized the sound and pictures stopped syncing halfway through the clip.
But of course this happens. Such is life and such is life especially in the Junior classroom.
After a few deep breaths, I tried to upload the videos through Vimeo and after paying a monthly membership fee, I was good to go (home). It is times like these these that I realize that we teachers can be as organized as can (I actually had these videos made and uploaded weeks ago…I just hadn’t watched them all the way through on You Tube)…but there may always been a certain percentage of our craft that is left up to chance and we just have to roll with it…and reschedule our yoga.
All these technical glitches aside, these were some of the comments from my girls after they had watched the videos:
– They were so funny. I wanted to keep watching them (score…unicorns, zombies, and donkeys win again)!
– It was great to pause and restart whenever I wanted to.
– They were too long. Can you make them about five minutes next time…you repeated yourself too much (point taken…I totally get now why many of the screencasting tools cut you off after 5 minutes).
– Can you do this again?
I bow to my students for giving me such honest, insightful, and helpful feedback. I hope that this is partially due to the class culture we have created together of offering kind, yet critical constructive feedback. I also love the idea that my students see me modelling something new, taking risks, and asking for help. I’m also really stoked about getting to try it again and see how it goes next time.
Yes, technology and preparedness sometimes conflict! But you raise a really important point about flipping a classroom – there is a lot of front-end loading involved, but also a lot of trouble-shooting as well. As teachers, we must continue to practice and hone our skills of adapting to student needs, but also classroom and resource needs too.
Congrats on a great first go-around with this, and the helpful feedback you’ve received from your students too!
I am glad to hear that the first run was a success!
What was the students take away? Were you able to check in with their understanding the next day about the concept? I would be very interested to see if they were able to watch, understand and then explain their understanding more than 8 hours later, or perhaps they had a practice sheet to work off of as well. Can’t wait to hear more about it.